


We've Been Here Before (the Million Miles Away remix)

by blueorangecrush



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2012-2013 NHL Lockout, Drunk Sex, Drunk Threesomes, M/M, Moving On, Multi, Pining, Remix, Team Russia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-19 03:56:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14228721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueorangecrush/pseuds/blueorangecrush
Summary: Zhenya may have been head over heels for Sasha, but that doesn't mean Geno has to be in love with Alex.  Geno doesn't even have tolikeAlex.





	We've Been Here Before (the Million Miles Away remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunshinexbomb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinexbomb/gifts).
  * Inspired by [We've Been Here Before](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8228720) by [sunshinexbomb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinexbomb/pseuds/sunshinexbomb). 



> Hello sunshinexbomb, I hope you enjoy what I've done with your fic! I've never really written any of these guys before, but your take on them was definitely inspiring so I'm glad I got the chance to remix this. 
> 
> Any and all canon errors are mine.
> 
> Thanks to the cheer/betas who helped me figure out where I wanted this to come from, since I knew all along where I wanted it to go. Y'all are the best. <3
> 
> Content notes: 
> 
> \- the "OFC" is several different OFCs over the course of time, due to "it's not gay if it's a three-way" logic. Could come across as misogynistic though the ladies involved are very much into doing the things they're doing (hey, two famous, young, hot, athletic dudes and a hell of a story to tell later maybe).  
> \- the various sex is consented to, generally quite enthusiastically but also under the influence of varying amounts of alcohol.
> 
> If either of those things are a serious no-go then you'll want to skip this.

It was impossible to avoid falling in love with Sasha.At least a little bit.

That’s what Zhenya always told himself, and surely Sasha’s tens of thousands of devoted fans would agree.

Sasha Ovechkin, the golden child of Russia, grown into sixteen stone of strength and speed and strategic brilliance.How could _anyone_ not love him? How could anyone not love…the idea of being close to him, the _reality_ of being close to him, of being good enough to be on Team Russia with him, good enough to be mentioned in the same breath as a possible future NHL star?

How could Zhenya not go along with Sasha, those times they played together, to spend the time after the game celebrating or commiserating with a few rounds of drinks, as Sasha catches the eye of a willing woman who is only too happy to be shared with - well, with _Zhenya,_ just as long as she gets to be with Sasha, too?

It never occurred to Zhenya that some of the women might have accepted Sasha as the price of a night with him, rather than the other way around.Because, well, because Zhenya accepted them as the price of being as close to Sasha as Sasha would let him get.

Zhenya knew that Sasha sometimes hooked up with just guys, alone.But never with him.He never asked why, and Sasha never gave an answer.

—

Magnitka wouldn’t let him go.

They wouldn’t let him and they wouldn’t let him and they more they found ways to force him to stay the more he knew he had to leave. 

Why couldn’t it have been Sasha who was stuck here instead of living the dream over there? Playing for the team he said he loved in the city he said he loved? Being Russia’s favorite son?

Zhenya was only ever the bastard stepchild, it felt like.

—

They got him to Pittsburgh, and he learned to answer to Geno instead of Zhenya…faster than he thought he would.Learned to think the game in English and Russian, instead of just answering reporters in English hockey cliches.It was something. 

It was a start.

And game by game, week by week, month by month, season by season, it was also home.

He played for Team Russia in the Olympics, shared a room with Sasha.Shared a lot of things with Sasha, like they had before, things that they don’t talk about when they aren’t in the middle of doing them.

Shared the bitterness of finishing without a medal, and the eagerness to get back to their teams in the United States.Sasha was better at saying the right things, of course.Why wouldn’t he be, he’s Alexander Ovechkin, son of an Olympic athlete, trained to this shit from _birth._

—

Sasha - no, Alex - no, _Sasha_ \- wanted it to be like old times.Wine, women, and who cares about the song?

Apparently somehow he’d missed the part where celebration was only for one of them at a time now, the part where they were actually playing for rival teams.“Just preparing for Olympics, Zhenya!” was his excuse.Was supposed to be enough of an excuse.

Five drinks in, Zhenya found himself going along with it.Because - Sasha.What else could he do?

Maybe he’d had more to drink than he thought, but it felt different this time, like Sasha was as into having Zhenya there as he was into the large-breasted redhead he’d brought back with them. 

—

He woke up the next morning on one side of a king bed, Sasha on the other side, and the redheaded woman whose name he had forgotten long gone.

Since they were already there he wanted so desperately to ask Sasha if they could, _just this once_ , be together, themselves.

But he didn’t want to ask because he didn’t want to hear the no, the rationalization of why of course they couldn’t do that, why they could only be together with a perfect stranger in between.

Better to clean up, get dressed, and walk away, go back to his life.

—

After that, they didn’t talk, not off the ice.And they didn’t have anything nice to say to each other on the ice.

Mostly, Geno was surprised at how much less it hurt than he thought it would.

Zhenya might have been hurt, might have pined and cried for what he lost.Zhenya would probably always be in love with Sasha, at least a little bit.

Geno didn’t have to be in love with Alex.Geno didn’t even have to fucking _like_ Alex.That they both came from the same enormous foreign country was only relevant to the kind of Americans who heard “Russia” and thought it was _all_ Moscow.

—

As the next Olympics drew closer, the prospective members of Team Russia started asking questions that neither of them could answer.

So, Sasha asked the question instead.And after all that time, Zhenya answered the question with a question.

“Why did there always have to be the women, between us?”

“I thought that was what you wanted! You always seemed to have a good time together, what are you saying?”

“What makes you think it was _them_ I wanted? You always picked them out, picked them up.”

“And you never did! I kept trying with different ones, to figure out what you were looking for.”

Zhenya tried one more time.“What makes you think it was them I was looking for at all?”

“Oh.”Sasha was quiet.“I might have liked that.But we couldn’t, without being seen, and we couldn’t be seen. So always there was someone, easy enough to get interested, pretty enough for it to make sense that you and I would settle for sharing.”

“Okay.So now I know.But - I can’t, not anymore. If we both are on the team again, for Olympics, we don’t share - don’t share _them_. You do what you want but not with me.”

“All right, Zhenya.All right.No more.”

—

And there was no more.Not at the Olympics, not at stolen moments before or after their teams play each other.Zhenya was the past, and Sasha with him.Geno and Alex were the present, the future.

Until the lockout.Until the lockout and Magnitka and being Zhenya to everyone all over again.

Until Magnitka plays Dynamo and Sasha bothered him into drinks. “It can be just drinks, Zhenya, promise!”

Until Sasha abandoned his promise and wandered off into the crowd looking for a woman.Again.

Zhenya swore he wouldn’t leave with Sasha, no matter what, no matter how tempting.He’s not going to start that again.

Then he remembered that Sasha may have abandoned him, but Sasha didn’t leave him _alone._ He’d managed to bring his favorite teammate along, convinced Nicky to come to Russia and Dynamo to sign Nicky. 

Zhenya looked at Nicky.He looked at Nicky’s eyes following Sasha’s disappearance into the crowd and he might as well have been looking at his own face.He knew that look.He knew that helpless, hopeless, overwhelming love.

He called for more shots for himself and Nicky. 

Nicky called him Geno.  Reminded him who he _was_ and who he could be again.

Geno didn’t have to love Alex.Geno didn’t have to be bound by the past, by old bonds, by traditions.Geno could - could have something else.Something better.

So could Nicky, if Geno was reading this right.“You wanna dance?” Geno asked, thrilled and suddenly breathless when Nicky agreed.

They could dance, and they did, and then they could find a corner with a wall for Geno to push Nicky up against, press into him, kiss him until they were both breathless with it.

Geno could say to Nicky “I want you” and mean it, and take him home, and fuck all the tension out of Nicky, out of them both, and then sleep curled around Nicky instead of pressed into a cold wall.

He could wake up with Nicky still there, still wanting him, still willing to be kissed and touched.  Both of them still okay with waking up with each other instead of with Alex.

And it had all happened. Somehow, impossibly, it had.  

And he knew it wouldn’t be too long until it happened again, wherever either of them played.They would find each other and find out what they could be.


End file.
